How To Gain Weight and Muscle Quickly
"How can I gain weight?" Is this a question you ever ask yourself? And by weight, I mean lean muscle mass (not fat).
Whether it's to boost your confidence, attract the girl of your dreams, or that supreme feeling of being in the best physical condition of your life - here are 3 key steps you can take to naturally gain weight fast. These three factors should form the pillars of any any plan for rapid and healthy weight gain.
So take the time to incorporate these powerful concepts into your life, and get yourself ready for some seriously rapid weight gain.
1. MASSIVELY Increase Your Calorie Intake
Chances are you simply aren't eating enough food to support your weight gain goals. Believe me, you're not alone here either.
Most skinny guys are shocked to discover how much more they should really be eating to gain weight and build muscle. Their present eating habits rarely even come close to the necessary intake they need to incorporate into their daily life.
Here's a nifty way to calculate the bare minimum level of healthy calories you need to be consuming:
Subtract your body fat weight (in pounds) from your overall weight, then multiple this number by 17. This will give you a rough estimate of how many calories you need to be consuming each and every day to meet for healthy and rapid weight gain.
For instance, if you weight 170lbs and have a body fat percentage of 15%...
[170 minus (170 x 15%)] x 17 = 144.5 x 17 = 2,456.5 calories
That's about two-and-a-half thousand calories as a MINIMUM daily requirement.
You then want to distribute those calories fairly evenly throughout your day, say over 5-7 meals, eating every 2-3 hours (depending on how long you're awake for each day!).
This will provide your body with the foundation of fuel it needs to support muscle growth and healthy weight gain.
2. Get Your Muscles To Grow - Overload Them!
To gain weight fast, it's imperative you understand the fundamentals of what makes muscle grow.
You see, for the most part your muscles prefer to conserve energy and would rather stay the way they are. Their overriding priority is your body's survival, so they need to be given a very compelling reason to increase in size.
Muscle hypertrophy (=growth) occurs as a direct result of a muscle being overloaded beyond its current threshold levels. This means subjecting it to a greater level of intensity
- in terms of weight lifted, reps completed, number of sets, duration etc. - than it is used to. Only then will it respond by getting bigger and stronger, so that next time round the experience is more manageable. Your body responds
this way to make the encounter easier to deal with next time round.
In other words, you get stronger, and gain muscle, ONLY by progressively and consistently making your muscles work harder and with greater intensity than in the previous workout.
In practical terms, this means you need to have a workout plan that enables you to increase the weights you're using consistently and steadily from one workout session to the next - maintaining good form and control throughout. Do this, in conjunction with the other tips in this article, and you'll start to notice a positive boost in your muscle size within a couple of weeks.
3. Recover, Recover, Recover...
So many guys get this bit wrong, so listen up!
Unless your body gets enough time to recover between workouts, you'll be wasting your time and drastically limiting your rate of progress.
In addition to your muscles needing time to repair and grow, your nervous-, hormonal-, and immune systems need time also to fully recover and heal. These systems typically need much more time to recuperate than your muscles, and it's critical they get the attention they deserve and most certainly warrant if you plan to gain weight successfully.
The most accurate way to measure your recovery is to check how well you're strength is improving from one workout session to the next. To make sure you're either lifting more weight, performing more reps, or completing your session in less time than before. Rather just relying on how you feel, which can prove misleading on occasions, you'll likely find this a far better indicator of whether you've rested up enough.
Aim for at least a 5% improvement in strength every 2 weeks measured - as measured by an increase in the weights you are lifting - and let that be your guide.
Sleep, good nutrition, and enough time to allow your hormonal, nervous and immune systems to recover - these are the keys to maximizing your weight gain and muscle growth results and propel yourself forward successfully.
Conclusion:
So there you have it:
Eat Plenty.
Overload your Muscles.
Recover Fully Between Workouts.
Sounds simple doesn't it?
Discipline yourself and make some time to use these steps in your own weight gain action plan. If you follow through on this, it's only a matter of time before other gym members are consulting you about how to gain weight fast and build muscle!
About the Author: Matt Carter is an enthusiastic and self-professed 'font
of knowledge' in the areas of natural bodybuilding, muscle growth and weight gain. You can find him at
http://www.honestmusclegain.com
He specializes in simplifying the process of how to build muscle and gain weight in
honest and easy (bite-sized) action-steps that literally anyone can follow.
(c) 2007, Honest Muscle Gain. All rights in all media
reserved. You may reprint this article so long as the
article and author bio are reprinted intake and ALL
links are made live. This article may never be sold
individually or as part of a package.
More articles by mcarter
Print Article | Download PDF | 71 views | Jul 04 2007
|
|
